Just received a call from a collections agency for a $41 charge from XM. When my 6 month subscription expired I opted to not renew. The collections guy said I had to call XM to cancel. It's in the terms and conditions, he says. News to me! Who reads that stuff anyway?

I don't like doing business with a company where every time you shake hands you have to count your fingers.

Has this happened to anyone else. How did you respond?

 

What does that mean you "opted" not to renew? Did you cancel your credit card? How did a $41 charge end up in a collection agency without you knowing about it? Story makes no sense without the missing details.

 

Yes, XM is shady as hell when it comes to that.

I had cancelled a long time ago. I got a letter with some offer for like $15 for 3 months or something so I decided to try it. I specifically told them I only wanted the offer for 3 months and then to cancel the service. I didn't listen to it much at all during that time. I was scrolling through the inputs about 4 months later and realized it was still on. I called them and asked why it was still on. I was told that I had to call only after the 3 months was up to cancel service, that I couldn't tell them in advance to activate it for the 3 month offer and then to stop service. So they had charged me at the regular crazy rate fir the 4th month and were simply going to keep charging me the higher rate forever until I called them.

Long story short, I had to waste a long time on the phone explaining to them that I never authorized them to continue to charge my credit card each month for service I didn't order. It took a while to get them to refund the charge and cancel the service. I very politely and respectfully asked to never, ever be contacted by them ever again for any reason by any means again. Of course they STILL continue to solicit me at least every month or so by email, snail mail, and even calling my house. They just won't go away.

 

As I stated on another post, I got a charge on my card for $190 from XM last week, call them up, go through three levels of people having shown them the deal I have in writing from them from 2 months ago ($5.09 a month for 12 months, with traffic). I asked them to read what my current agreement said, was told we are not going to honor what we agreed to.

No longer an XM user.

HBSURFDAD

 

I did not give them a credit card intentionally because I did not want them to auto renew. They sent me an invoice in the mail which I ignored. I have it in front of me and they do talk about "Automatic Renewal Terms" on the back. I can't remember if I saw an invoice when I first signed up. I think it was done on line or over the phone.

 

Yeah, I regret giving them my CC. I've read that reps will even hang up on you if you try to cancel.

I'm doing the 70whatever/year plan, so it's not terrible... but when I do decide to cancel, I'll make sure to do it really early and record the conversation or something.

 

Wow! I had sirrius traffic in the last car and it was relatively accurate for the area here. With them, if you decide to continue after the trial, you can get the traffic sub without having to also get a radio subscription. Is this the case with XM too?

 

Xm is shady, I got an offer for 5 a month for 5 months, at month three I get a call asking why I didn't pay the 100 (got a new CC) and Shiat hit the fan from there....

 

^ All reasons why I don't subscribe to XM. I even had a "Los Angeles" newspaper pull the same $h!t. If I recall, wasn't there a big lawsuit with the Girls Gone Wild folks for doing something like this? I don't know why the Feds let anyone get away with this sort of thing.
IMHO XM really needs to avoid last ditch stratagies and offer some *high* quality sound that people will pay for in a world of 100+gig iPods, Spotify and Pandora!
Thanks for listening, now I feel better. :-)

 

wow, thanks guys for the warning.

i just got my G and im not sure if im going to pay for the Xm service after the 3 months trail is over.

thank you again for the heads up!
they sound like some a**holes.

 

good heads up, i did the 5 month for $25 like a month ago but i marked my calendar and put an alarm for it on the 5 month mark so i can either cancel or bargain for a new offer. good to know that they operate this way, ill be prepared for them

 

What about taking them to small claims court?

 

XM is shady with the renewal stuff. I didn't even renew after my free trial because of these issues

 

I'm not that worried about it. They will have to send a renewal notice with the latest price. At that point I can bargain and/or cancel.

 

I use a one time only CC# when dealing with people like XM.